Willa of the Wood

by Robert Beatty

  “Do you wish to starve, is that it?” he asked. “Do you wish to freeze alone in the winter cold?” he asked, raising his voice as the surrounding swarm hissed and jeered at her. “You’re acting like a girl who doesn’t understand the value of the clan that protects her!”

  Seeing that there was no way for her to defend herself, Gredic rushed in and grabbed her satchel. He tried to yank it away, but she’d been expecting his attack. She leapt to her feet and clutched the satchel to her side. The padaran stepped back to let the two jaetters fight it out, one against the other. But Gredic’s brother, Ciderg, charged in. He struck her so hard that she hit the ground, gasping for air, her ribs burning. Ciderg ripped the satchel away from her hands and handed it to his brother.

  Gredic held the satchel up for all to see. “It feels very light!” he shouted triumphantly as the crowd hooted and hollered in return. They’d been watching the rivalry between the jaetters for years, with all their tricks and takes, their rises and their falls.

  But as Gredic pawed through the satchel, it became clear by the grim expression on his face that something was wrong. “It can’t be empty,” he grumbled in confusion. “It can’t be…”

  But then he hissed with pleasure.

  “The sneaky little beast has hidden something in a concealed pocket…She’s trying keep her take for herself! She’s trying to steal from the clan!”

  Then Gredic went silent.

  His expression changed.

  It was clear to everyone that he had discovered something in the satchel so deliciously wicked that even he couldn’t believe his luck.

  He lifted two small brown coins above his head. “After all the trouble she’s caused, all Willa got last night were these two copper pennies!” he called out above the rising clamor of the crowd. “Two copper pennies! That’s all she got!”

  As Willa gathered herself slowly, painfully, up onto her knees, and then up onto her feet, the padaran moved toward her with his spear.

  Standing before him, she did not look away as others always did. She stared right back at him.

  My name is Willa, she thought defiantly.

  But as the padaran studied her, the malice in his expression slowly changed to something else, something more wary and uncertain than simply angry. And that was her only hope now.

  She had snuck into the homesteader’s house and stolen his belongings to get the padaran’s attention, to earn his praise. But now that the sun had risen and the harsh light of the padaran’s gaze was on her, her heart pounded in her chest.

  Would there be praise or punishment?

  The bronze skin of the padaran’s face seemed to glimmer as he turned toward Gredic. He looked at the two pennies in Gredic’s hand, then out at the crowd. And then finally, his eyes came back to her.

  “Is this truly what you’ve brought me?” the padaran asked. “You’ve been a strong and effective jaetter for this clan, quick of hand and deft of thought. But two nights ago, you failed me with an empty satchel. And the night before that your satchel was light as well. And now this…Is this the take you have brought to your padaran?”

  Willa met his eyes, and held his gaze as steady as she could, but she did not speak.

  “Answer me,” he demanded in a growl. “Is this what you have brought me, Willa?”

  “No, my padaran,” Willa said finally, her tone soft and filled with respect. But then her voice took on a sharper edge. “This is what I brought for Gredic.”

  Gredic hissed and moved toward her, but the padaran pointed his clawed finger at the jaetter. “You stay right there,” he snarled, and Gredic stopped dead in his tracks, too frightened to move another step.

  When the padaran looked at Willa, a knowing expression slowly inched across his face. “Gredic and the other jaetters have been stealing your take from you…”

  Willa nodded. “Yes, my padaran. He got his two cents this time, just as I knew he would.”

  “It’s a lie!” Gredic screamed. “I bring home a good take every night! You know I do! The little beast is lying!”

  “If I may, my padaran,” Willa said, “I would like your permission to walk over to that tree over there so that I can show you something.”

  The padaran glanced toward the woven-stick column, and then looked back at Willa, his eyes narrowing in curiosity. “You may go,” he said.

  Willa noticed the padaran’s eyes shift across the room. She couldn’t be sure, but it was almost as if he was trying to gauge the crowd’s reaction to what was happening. She had noticed in the past that although he was the great leader of the clan, he seemed to live in worry of what his subjects were seeing when they looked at him, what they were thinking at that moment.

  As she walked over to the woven-stick tree, she felt and heard the moment the people in the crowd behind her realized there was actually an old woman lying on the floor at the base of the tree.

  “May I borrow your bag, Grandmother?” Willa asked, using the most formal title she could for her mamaw, reminding people in a small, quiet way that she herself was just a girl, with a grandmother and a clan, respectful of the old ways of her people. Willa knew from watching the padaran that words had power, the power to persuade and the power to deceive.

  As her mamaw handed her the old, tattered bag, she looked up at Willa and their eyes met. Be careful, my child, she seemed to be saying.

  “Thank you, Grandmother,” Willa said.

  “What kind of trick is this?” Gredic hissed in protest as Willa returned with her mamaw’s medicine bag and set it before the throne. “I have brought this for you, my padaran…”

  “And what is it?” the padaran asked.

  Taking that as her cue, Willa stepped forward and reached into the bag.

  “My padaran, will you please…” she asked softly, and then, as the crowd looked on, Willa poured a waterfall of silver coins out of the bag into the padaran’s cupped hands.

  Gredic writhed in anguish. “It’s one of the little beast’s dirty tricks!”

  “You have done very well, little one,” the padaran said, using the term “little one” for Willa as if she wasn’t just a thieving jaetter, but once again a child of the clan, to be protected and honored. Words have power, Willa thought again. He knew it. And she knew it.

  “But this is not all, my padaran…” she said as she pulled wads of crumpled green bills from the bag and put them in his hands.

  The crowd erupted with pleasing sounds at the riches she had brought. Then she pulled out the Cherokee arrowheads, which were highly prized in the clan, for they could be used on the tips of their spears.

  “You have pleased the padaran, my child,” the god of the clan said as she filled his hands with treasure, the praise pouring out of him like poison from a festering wound.

  Willa could see her grandmother watching her and the padaran with steady eyes, as if she was seeing the plot of a play unfold.

  “But that is not all…” Willa said again.

  As she slowly pulled out the glittering silver jewelry she’d stolen from the man’s lair and laid it in the padaran’s hands, his eyes widened and whispers of approval ran through the crowd.

  There was no doubt now. It was a large and bountiful take, but it wasn’t important just because the padaran and his guards could sell and trade these goods for the benefit of the clan. It wasn’t just about the money and the valuables. The size and tradition of a jaetter’s take was a symbol of his or her loyalty to the padaran, her embrace and acceptance of everything that held the clan together.

  But as the padaran and the jaetters and everyone in the crowd gazed upon her take with gleaming eyes, Willa felt a strange and lingering shame.

  So much had come to depend on her take each night—whether it was more than Gredic’s or less, whether the padaran was pleased or angry—but deep down, she couldn’t help herself from wondering what difference it all made to her and her people and the forest in which they all lived.

  Gredic groveled low to the floor
as he crept toward the padaran like a slithering creature. “You know I am your loyal servant, my padaran…”

  Willa watched as the padaran’s eyes slid reluctantly over to Gredic.

  “You know you can trust me…” Gredic said.

  “Speak what’s on your mind,” the padaran said gruffly.

  “What the little beast said isn’t true. We haven’t been stealing her take. She’s been stealing ours. This take is ours, ours to give to the padaran. She stole it from us and hid it with the old witch. We all know the little beast is a woodwitch, too. She can’t hide it.”

  As the gang of jaetters surrounded her and started a slow and steady hiss in unison with Gredic’s charges against her, Willa’s heart began to sink. She knew that no matter what she said or did now, most of them were going to support Gredic’s claim against her.

  Willa glanced over at Gillen. Her friend’s eyes blazed with anger at the way the jaetters were turning on her. But when Gillen moved forward to stand in her defense, Kearnin and the other jaetters shoved her back. Willa looked over at her mamaw, but what could her mamaw do for her? How could she save her?

  The padaran turned to Willa, his eyes moving from her streaked and spotted face to the leaf-colored skin of her arms and legs to her head of long, dark hair.

  “Your fellow jaetter has made a charge against you,” the padaran said. “Can you prove that this was your take? Can you prove that you didn’t steal this from Gredic?”

  Willa met the padaran’s eyes. She knew he was far smarter than the other people in the room, far smarter than even Gredic, and he already knew the answer to all his questions. He knew this was her take. He knew she had tricked Gredic. But he wanted to watch her confront this new challenge.

  Willa held the padaran’s gaze in silence for several seconds, her chest tightening with frustration. Now she had to prove it. Not just venture down into the valley miles away and sneak into a killing man’s lair. Not just get shot and crawl back into Dead Hollow on her belly, and fight and hide and blend and run. She felt it boiling up inside her. Now she had prove it, prove that she had actually stolen these things, prove that she was loyal to the clan, prove that she was loyal to the padaran.

  She looked at Gredic and the other jaetters, and out across the crowd of Faeran waiting for her answer. Then she looked over at her grandmother, who was watching her and the padaran.

  Finally, she nodded. “Yes, I think I can,” she said.

  She lifted the bag and held it above her head.

  “If what you say is true, Gredic, that I stole this take from you, then you should have no trouble telling everyone here what remains inside this bag.”

  She could see Gredic furiously trying to figure out what she was doing. She could see him trying to think it through. She had put so much treasure into the padaran’s hands. How could there possibly be more still in the bag?

  Gredic’s face grimaced with uncertainty. “It’s another trick!” he declared.

  “You claim that it was your take,” she said for all to hear. “So is there something still left in the bag, or is it empty now?”

  Gredic studied her with his narrow eyes, his face contorting as he grappled with her question. He looked at the deflated bag, then back at her.

  “It’s empty,” he said. “There’s nothing left of value in there.”

  “Gredic is right,” Willa said loudly, nodding as she looked around at the faces in the crowd.

  But then she turned and looked at the padaran. “He’s right that what is left in the bag is of little monetary value, certainly no value at all to him. It’s a personal gift from me to the padaran to thank him for all he’s done for me, and for our people.”

  Everyone watched as Willa reached her hand into the bag and pulled out a small pouch of brown material. She bowed her head in a gesture of honor and handed the padaran the chewing tobacco she had stolen from the lair of the day-folk man.

  She knew that the tobacco that the humans used was one of the padaran’s most private and beloved pleasures. The padaran’s shoulders rolled with seething anticipation as he pulled the tobacco into his covetous hands, not just because he was pleased with her gift, or because her words had touched his heart, but because he loved the conniving way she had tricked her rivals. He was the god of the clan, but she knew that deep down he would suck delight from the thought that she had learned the power of deceit from him. And the truth was, she had. She’d been watching him all her life, learning how to gain his smiles and avoid his strikes, how to not just persevere but to prevail in the world he’d created.

  “This is a very good take, Willa,” he said, using her name in the most powerful way.

  Gredic and the other jaetters exploded in contempt, hissing and snarling. They swayed their bodies and gnashed their sharp little teeth. Despite all the wrong she’d done against the clan, she had once again shifted her colors and slipped away. She was the mouse that always squirmed out of their grasp!

  And the jaetters knew that her words to the padaran were all part of her trickery. They were the loyal ones, not her!

  But worst of all, Gredic and Ciderg and Kearnin and the others knew that Gredic’s time as the leader of the jaetters was waning.

  But Willa, despite all her victories, couldn’t feel the glory of her moment the way she thought she would. Deep down, the actions she performed and the words she said left her cold and empty. She had brought her satchel home fuller than it had ever been, she was surrounded by her clan, and praised by the padaran. This was what she had always wanted. But the only thing she could think of—the only sensation she wanted to feel—was the friendship of the wolves, the acceptance of the bears, and the sight of the glistening lake. And then—to her surprise—she thought about what the human boy had called “cookies.” Those peculiar little lumps she had passed through the mesh of the prison cell.

  For some reason, it felt like that—helping the human boy trapped in the dark prisons of her clan—that strange and dangerous thing that came from the I deep inside her instead of the we of the clan, had been her most satisfying reward for coming home with her satchel full.

  Her mind kept returning to one thing: the way the man with his killing-stick had looked at her when he found her wounded in his barn. She remembered the way he had spoken to her in soft tones and found a cloth to tend to her wound. All the other thoughts slipped away into a murky, muddled nothingness, but that one act of kindness dwelled in her mind and her heart like nothing ever had before.

  As the jaetters jeered at her, the padaran looked upon her, and the rest of the clan watched it all, Willa turned to her grandmother at the edge of the room.

  Her grandmother’s eyes were looking at her, holding on to Willa with everything she could. But her mamaw’s eyes weren’t filled with pride or happiness or even relief in her accomplishments. They were filled with worry. It seemed as if her mamaw was thinking, You’re blending in a way that I never taught you. But it’s keeping us both alive.

  When Willa turned back to look at the padaran, she was startled to see that he wasn’t looking at the crowd like he normally did, or even at her, but across the room at her grandmother.

  Willa knew that her grandmother had lived a quiet, peaceful life for many years, blending into the rest of the clan, nurturing the plants in her den, and raising her granddaughter. But now the padaran’s eyes were studying her grandmother as if he was wondering just what kind of trickery the old woman had brought into his hall.

  Then he turned slowly back toward Willa.

  “Come here, Willa,” he ordered, his tone filled with a commanding tone that turned her blood ice-cold.

  With those simple, blunt words, the room went silent. Willa’s chest tightened.

  Having no other choice, she stepped toward the looming presence of the great leader.

  “I want you to tell me where you got this take,” he said.

  “I stole it, my padaran,” she said, trying to sound proud, but her voice was trembling. It was a tr
uth she knew she should be proud of in his eyes. He had been the one who taught her how to steal, how to deceive. But she felt the heat rising to her cheeks. He had seen something. He had sensed something.

  “Where did you steal it?” he asked.

  Knowing that it would anger him if he knew she had risked creeping into a homesteader’s lair, she didn’t answer.

  “Where did you get all this, Willa?”

  The padaran knew she didn’t want to divulge her secrets to her jaetter rivals, but he pressed her anyway. He seemed to sense that she’d seen something or done something out there in the world that had changed her in some way.

  When he stepped closer to her, a drop of sweat dripped from his face and fell into her hair. He was so close that she could smell the musk of his body. She desperately wanted to shrink away from him. But she knew she couldn’t.

  He leaned his face to her neck and sniffed. “What is it that I smell on you?” he asked her.

  “Nothing, my padaran,” she said as quickly as she could.

  “Have you been touching some sort of”—he paused and tilted his head and sniffed again—“some sort of animal? What kind of animal is that I smell?”

  “Nothing, my padaran,” she said again.

  He clamped onto her shoulder with a crushing hand. “You will come with me.”

  The padaran had commanded it, so Willa had no choice but to follow him. The god of the clan pulled her behind the throne and through a woven-stick archway that led into a narrow passage.

  She tried to wipe down the quills on the back of her neck with the cup of her hand, worrying that they’d betray the increasing sense of dread churning through her body.

  Still carrying the spear of power, the padaran led her into the inner sanctuary of his private den, a heavily protected part of the lair that she and the other members of the clan were never allowed to enter. It was a great honor, but she couldn’t help but realize that she wasn’t being invited. She was being brought by force.